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Writers who properly use MLA also build their credibility by demonstrating accountability to their source material. Most importantly, the use of MLA style can protect writers from accusations of plagiarism, which is the purposeful or accidental uncredited use of source material by other writers.

Be sure to consult the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (7th edition). The MLA Handbook is available in libraries & bookstores, and at the MLA web site. For an overview of the 2009 guidelines, visit the OWL's MLA Update 2009 resource.

In MLA style, referring to the works of others in your text is done by using what is known as parenthetical citation. This method involves placing relevant source information in parentheses after a quote or a paraphrase.

“ Blah, blah, blah” (Lastname 5).

Any source information that you provide in-text must correspond to the source information on the Works Cited page . More specifically, whatever signal word, name, or phrase you provide to your readers in the parenthesis, must be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of the corresponding entry in the Works Cited List.

The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses , not in the text of your sentence. For example:

Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a &quot;spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings&quot; (263). Romantic poetry is characterized by the &quot;spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings&quot; (Wordsworth 263).

All citations tell readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of a work by an author named Wordsworth. If readers want more information, they can turn to the Works Cited page, where they would find the following:

To indicate short quotations ( fewer than 4 typed lines of prose or 3 lines of verse ), enclose the quotation within double quotation marks. Provide the author and specific page citation (in the case of verse, provide line numbers) in parenthesis, and include a complete reference on the Works Cited page.

Punctuation marks such as periods, commas, and semicolons should appear after the parenthetical citation.

Question marks & exclamation points should appear within the quotation marks if they are a part of the quoted passage but after the parenthetical citation if they are a part of your text.

For Print sources like books, magazines, scholarly journal articles, and newspapers, provide the author’s last name and a page number. If you provide the name in the sentence, you do not need to include it in the parenthetical citation.

In-text Citations: Print Sources with No Known Author

When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the work instead of an author name. Place the title in quotation marks if it's a short work ( articles) or italicize it if it's a longer work (plays, books, television shows, websites) and provide a page number.

Quotations must be identical to the original, using a narrow segment of the source. They must match the source document word for word and must be attributed to the original author.

Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly.

Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words. It is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material.

If you cite more than one work by a particular author, include a shortened title for the particular work from which you are quoting to distinguish it from the others.

Additionally, if the author's name is not mentioned in the sentence, you would format your citation with the author's name followed by a comma, followed by a shortened title of the work, followed, when appropriate, by page numbers:

Visual studies, because it is such a new discipline, may be &quot;too easy&quot; (Elkins, &quot;Visual Studies&quot; 63).

If you cite from different volumes of a multivolume work, always include the volume number followed by a colon. Put a space after the colon, then provide the page number(s). (If you only cite from one volume, provide only the page number in parentheses.)